Vince is officially 2 and a half. I thought I’d document a little about where he is in life so we can come back and reflect on it later.
At 2 ½, he can say his ABC’s. He’s had that down for a few months now. Although LMNOP sounds more like Elmo and JK is KK. Before bed every night after we finish reading several books (to which he always says, "one mooorreee" with one finger up), David and I sing twinkle twinkle to him and then Barney’s “I love you” song… you know, “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family”.. it makes me appreciate that we are a happy family every night. He also counts to 20 but skips 15.
Vince is still in his crib. Only because I tried a toddler bed and he showed up in our room one too many times. In fact, I made David put the crib back together at 10pm one night. Right now we are working on him sleeping alone all night which we just recently started being successful at (previously, mommy showed mercy on him and would walk over to sleep in the futon in his room at 4am every night when he cried). He also says goodnight to everyone he knows most nights. When he wants us to come visit him in the crib, he yells “I have a problem”. When we ask him what’s his problem he usually tries to get his foot stuck in between the rails, and today he answered “I’m sad”. He’s a funny little guy.
We’ve started potty training over a week ago. Things are going well. In fact, today I took him to the grocery store with no diaper and he didn’t have an accident!!
He’s still obsessed with trains. We currently have over 20 motorized different trains and endless freight cars. Half his stash is at our house and half at my parents. I try to keep his tracks on the train table but he loves to make new tracks on the floor. He thinks all overpasses are train tracks and can hear a train from a mile away. We still want to take him on the TRE to Fort Worth.
He’s starting to be a great swimmer now that he’s learned to use his arms (do scoopers). He can swim about 6 to 8 feet under water and can go 10 seconds. We have had him in swim classes from when he was 7 – 13 months and then again from 24 months - 30 months (now). For the summer it has been a treat to get a swim teacher to teach us in our pool instead of me driving through traffic. Just yesterday she brought pennies and put them on the 2nd step. Vince wore his goggles (or boggles as he says) and would hold his breath to get them all. Right now we are working on him taking breaths in between swimming.
My parents are watching him for the whole month of August and in September he’ll be going to a mother’s day out program that is 4x a week. My parents are loving it (I think or hope) to have one of their grandkids running around. Most days I pick him up and he is naked in the backyard with a hose watering plants and playing in a baby pool. He has so much fun at their house. In fact, he likes it more than our house. When I pull into our neighborhood he says most of the time “I don’t want to go hone, I want to go to grandma's house”.
Other little things…. When he wants to get something from a countertop he runs to the bathroom to get his stepstool and pushes it where needed. Some of his favorite foods are chicken nuggets, mini corn dogs, yogurts, pancakes, eggs, pizza, and most fruits. Everyone says he’s a spitting image of David although I see myself in him a lot… especially his big bug eyes and round face. He loves his cousins and 2nd cousins and learns some not great things sometimes... currently he goes around singing Sir Mix a lot's song, "I like big ....'s". What ever we say, he repeats int he form of a question... For example, "Vince, let's go outside"... "let's go outside???". He's left handed, and can already throw well. Anytime we lay on the floor, he likes to sit on our heads. And he likes to push his shopping cart around while David vaccums.
He’s one smart fella that keeps us on our toes and we are looking forward to what the next several several years has in store for us with him.
Not only did we see a fantastic show, we took a train there. Vince absolutely loved it, although I don't think he understod at first that we were inside the train... he kept wanting to get on others that we passed and would act excited when he would hear the train whistle. Eventually he did get it and almost everyday since he asks if we can go back and ride the train. Sometimes he says he wants to ride it to the circus. 
In reality, it was a fantastic show, but I think David and I appreciated the majesty of it more than Vince. They had great magic tricks and illusions that we couldn't figure out. We were entertained from beginning to end.
And after the circus, the fun wasn't over, as we had to ride the train back home. That definietly won't be our last train ride on the TRE... I think one day we'll just ride it all day long... 
dancing the night away by the pool... 
